Sound of Blue＜Colored Vinyl＞

White Poppys 2020 album Paradise Gardens was an honest, personal effort with lyrics openly relating to mental health issues and depression, fully living up to the artists self-description of her music as "therapeutic pop." The songs on 2023s Sound of Blue were actually conceived in 2016 and finished several years later, and the album works as a fitting sequel to Paradise Gardens, particularly due to its theme of finding paradise within. "Apathy," with lyrics about just wanting to make it through the day peacefully, opens the album, immediately settling into White Poppys signature style of hook-filled yet ethereal dream pop. The drumless, tape-hissy "Sound of Blue" and "Wiser" recall the folkier sound of earlier releases like Drifters Gold. "One More Night" has a more easygoing, shimmering bounce, somewhat disguising its dark, uncertain lyrics. After a few mellower tracks like the instrumental "Melancholic Serenity," "Paradise (Make My Own)" brings it all home with a driving drum machine thwack and intriguing lyrics about seeing a "river of infinity," ending with the question "isnt it nice in paradise?" ~ Paul Simpson